Understanding the Ideal Page Experience in 2020
Written By: ShaneWebGuy on July 28, 2020
Editor’s note — October 4, 2026: This article reflects Google’s page-experience guidance as discussed in 2020, including First Input Delay (FID). Interaction to Next Paint (INP) replaced FID on March 12, 2024. Current good Core Web Vitals thresholds are Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) ≤2.5 seconds, INP ≤200 milliseconds and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) ≤0.1, assessed at the 75th percentile of page loads, separately for mobile and desktop. The historical discussion follows, with the CLS comparison corrected.
Page experience is a collection of signals used by Google to determine how users collectively view, interact, and experience a Web page. Page experience is not concerned with just the information on the page or “pure informational value.”
Core Web Vitals
Page experience takes into account Core Web Vitals, too. Core Web Vitals falls under Web Vitals. Core Web Vitals should be monitored and measured by site owners regularly. Google is championing user-centric outcomes to make positive real-world experiences while using the Web.
The current metrics will eventually change. This year, Google has focused on visual stability, interactivity, and loading aspects of Web pages. For best loading performance, the LCP or Largest Contentful Paint must take place within 2.5 seconds after the user has loaded a page.
The First Input Delay or FID must be less than 100 milliseconds. This metric reveals the interactivity of a page. The CLS or Cumulative Layout Shift, on the other hand, is the measure of visual stability. The acceptable CLS for pages now is ≤0.1.
Users can make use of numerous field tools to measure CLS, FID, and LCP. There’s the Chrome User Experience Report, PageSpeed Insights, and the Core Web Vitals Report. They also have the web-vitals JavaScript library available on GitHub.
Ranking for Page Experience
The official roadmap for page experience ranking states that the best page experiences accomplish two main things. First, it makes people more productive. Second, it boosts engagement. A negative or bad page experience does the complete opposite.
People may not find what they have been searching for in the first place. Additionally, they may disconnect quickly from what they see on the page. The long-term goal of page experience ranking is to encourage site owners and developers to create online experiences that users will truly enjoy.
The Core Web Vitals we discussed earlier is already in effect. Google is developing four more page experience factors for full rollout: no intrusive interstitials, HTTPS, mobile-friendly browsing, and safe browsing. Google has its tool for checking the mobile-friendliness of websites. The search giant has also laid out the groundwork for speedier and more effective mobile sites.
There are five major steps that you can take today to see how your website stacks up against the competition:
– Learn about Core Web Vitals. Research the different tools and consoles to monitor these regularly.
– Check to see if your website passes Google’s mobile-friendliness test.
– Find out if your website has any security threats or vulnerabilities. You can perform this analysis through the Security Issues Report.
– Ensure that your website is secure with HTTPS. Check out Google’s guide here.
– Study and implement interstitials in a way that doesn’t create negative experiences for users.
What Makes a Good or Bad Interstitial?
Interstitials are usually ad units displayed on a website. However, not all interstitials are advertising. An interstitial is considered bad in these circumstances:
– When a pop-up is highly intrusive and blocks the entire view of the page.
– When the interstitial is stand-alone and prevents the view above the fold of the page.
– When the interstitial completely covers the page.
Google takes into account the need for marketing. Not all interstitials are considered harmful to page experience. A good example of this is the pop-up prompts for verifying the age of the user. Some regions also require cookie verification. Some websites also use login dialogs. These dialogs lead to pages that are not publicly indexed – such as member pages and premium content. Log-ins and sign-up interstitials are also common for websites with paywalls. Are banners considered bad interstitials? Banners are acceptable to Google as long as they don’t cover almost the entire page.
Mobile Top Stories
Google’s Mobile Top Stories feature content from highly optimized AMP websites. Google previously prioritized AMP websites. There will be another update that will come with a fresh set of guidelines. These guidelines will indicate how websites can qualify for Mobile Top Stories. AMP will no longer be the central criterion for inclusion in Mobile Top Stories.
If you already have an AMP website, there will be no changes to your ranking if Google has already featured your pages in Mobile Top Stories.
Strategizing for Better Results
We know the bulk of what page experience ranking entails. But how can you apply this knowledge ASAP?
– Work on your pages to boost the page loading time. The quicker your pages load, the higher your ranking will get over time. Get your reports in line and go through them to see how your website is doing nowadays.
– 400 errors are the worst. Eliminate any 400 errors on your site as soon as possible.
– Compare your website’s performance with the performance of your competitors’ websites.
– Find out the usability level of your pages. Use tools like CrazyEgg to generate a heat map of your landing pages and other important pages on your website. Take note that heat map software now measures not just clicks, but also scrolls. Heat maps are an awesome way to find out how people are using your website.
– Don’t forget that great content is still number one. Don’t let page experience derail you from developing fresh content. If anything, you should develop more ways to make your content-heavy pages more accessible using the guidelines that Google has already rolled out.
– Page experience rankings will naturally make websites more competitive. Why? Because there will be lots of situations where your website presents similar content to that of your competition. If the content is almost the same, Google will use likely use other metrics to determine the ‘best’ from a set of ‘good ones.’
Summary:
Page experience rankings will shape the Web even further. We believe that it is going to make websites faster and sharper than ever before. If you are interested in AMP development, digital marketing, or upgrading your website’s page experience metrics, don’t hesitate to call me.
